I though I would try an experiment this Saturday.

I wanted to install the last piece of steel fabrication.

I had two way I could do this.

a) Hire a hoist - this means I would need to drop the steel piece off at site on Friday (not enough room to carry hoist and beam together), go to Midland first thing on Saturday to obtain the hoist and a back to Midland on Sunday to return it.

b) Just take the piece out to site on Saturday, erect a tripod hoist using scaffold and my chain block, place the piece using the tripod, tear down the tripod, with no need to visit anywhere off site.

I tried solution (b) this time.

First thing Saturday I offloaded the piece and set it up in position in the hallway ready for hoisting.

It took me 1.5 hours to build the hoist and 0.5 hours to take down the hoist - ie a total of 2 hours.

This compares favourably with 2 x 1 hours travel needed to pick up and return the hoist.

However, the tripod hoist was unable to clear the top of the stud frames and I ended up spending 3 hours messing around.

This compares badly with the 10 minutes it would have taken using the hoist - though we should consider the extra trip that would have been necessary to drop the piece off the day before.

I do have quite a few heavy beams that will need hoisting when I build the loft roof - so I might start keeping an eye on Gumtree to see if any hoists turn up at a price I can afford.

It was an incredibly hot day and I was flagging badly at a point where one of my regular visitors turned up.

However, after some urging I followed his advice and it actually helped significantly - so there is a lesson in there.

Jim and Sandy also turned up while I was taking a break - so nice to have the company.

Later in the day we had strong winds, an ominously dark sky, thunder and a heavy down pour.

This made the air cool and refreshing for a while but it soon reverted to hot and humid.

After wrestling the beam in to position and bolting it down, I went on to installing the last of the coach screws to fix the various panels together.